The use of optical fiber and laser technology, ensures that connections can be made over very long distances (e.g. more than 100 km (60 miles) between 2 nodes, network size >2000km (1200 miles)) with excellent transmission quality. To improve the reliability of the fiber optic backbone, a redundant fiber optic ring topology is used. This allows the OTN network to restore itself automatically in case of an optical fiber cable break. Multiple of these redundant OTN rings can be coupled to provide the optimal network topology.

The OTN system offers a backbone ring capacity of:

• 150/155 Mbps STM1/OC3;
• 600/622 Mbps STM4/OC12;
• 2.5 Gbps STM16/OC48;
• 10 Gbps STM64/OC192.

Just pick the superhighway that suits you...

Upgrading is a piece of cake. This offers OTN customers an excellent migration path.

The following types of optical fibers can be used between two neighbour nodes.

• 50/125 µm and 62.5/125 µm multimode fiber;
• 9/125 µm single-mode fiber;

Optical fibers offer a number of advantages as opposed to conventional copper wire conductors, e.g.:

• the indifference to electro-magnetic interference;
• the low BER (Bit Error Rate) of the optical fibers in comparison with a conventional cabling.